er had as much home life as a coyote," he continued with rebellion
in his tone. "A coyote does git a den and a family around him every
spring." And he added shortly, "I'm lonesome."

They sat in a long silence, Kate with her hands clasped about a knee and
looking off at the mountain. She turned to him after a while:

"Do you like me, Bowers?"

"I shore do."

Then she asked with quiet deliberation:

"Well enough to--marry me?"

Bowers looked at her, speechless. He managed finally:

"Are you joshin'?"

"No."

A prairie dog rose up in front of them and chattered. They both stared
at him. Bowers reached over and took her gloved fingers between his two
palms--in the same fashion a loyal subject might have touched his
queen's hand.

"That's a great thing you said to me, Miss Kate. I never expected any
such honor ever to come to me. I'd crawl through cut glass and cactus
for you. I guess you know it, too, but anything like that would be a
mistake, Miss Kate. I ain't in your class."

"My class!" bitterly. "What is my class? I'm in one by myself--I don't
belong anywhere." She paused a moment, then went on: "We needn't pretend
to love each other--we're not hypocrites, but we understand each other,
our interests are the same, we are good friends, at least, and in the
experiment there might be something better than our present existence."

"I want to see you happy," he replied slowly. "I haven't any other wish,
and, right or wrong, I'll do anything you say, but I'm as shore as we're
settin' here that you'll never find it with me. I thought--I hoped that
Disston feller--"

She interrupted sharply:

"Don't, Bowers, don't!"

Understanding grew in his troubled eyes as he looked at her quivering
chin and mouth.

"So that was it!" he reflected.

Thick volumes of smoke rolled up from the engine attached to the mixed
train that stood on the side-track which paralleled the shipping corrals
at Prouty, to sink again in the heavy atmosphere presaging a storm. The
clouds were leaden and sagged with the weight of snow about to fall.

Teeters's cattle bawled in the three front cars and the remaining
"double deckers" were being loaded with Kate Prentice's sheep. She had
followed her early judgment in cutting down the number of her sheep for
a hard winter and, in consequence, the engine had steam up to haul the
longest stock train that had ever pulled out of Prouty.

Bowers and his helpers were crowding the sheep up the run